Horrid Foods From Childhood

Tom Colicchio once said something along the lines of “We have blind spots when it comes to our childhood comfort foods.” This is so true. I didn’t realize this until I was first living with my husband. I had some free time and I decided to whip up dinner for the two of us. It was a cold, cloudy day so, naturally, I wanted to make something hearty and comforting. So, I turned to a childhood recipe and proudly served the results to him when he got home from work.

His reaction was not what I hoped for. He put on a good show, but I could tell he didn’t care for it. “What is the matter with him?” I thought. Is he always going to be this picky?

I brought it up later in a conversation. I told him it was one of my favorite childhood foods. He looked at me for a minute and said “Really?”

This is what I served him: Browned ground beef in French onion soup from a can, thickened with cornstarch. I poured it over mashed potatoes. My mom made it all the time. We called it meat and onion soup. However, upon reflection, it is not, perhaps, the most appetizing dish to someone unfamiliar with it. Ah, cooking with canned soup. Is there anything better?

My husband has one of these blind spots of his own, by the way. He likes these cheese enchiladas from a “restaurant” in town. I’m convinced they are cheese-colored lard bombs. So, when we each need comfort, I eat my plate of soupy beef and he eats his fried lard abominations and we’re both happy.

Do you have any childhood comfort foods that no one else understands? What comfort foods are your children turning to?

Christa T. Palmer is a mother of 2 small children who lives in Colorado. She worked in the corporate world for more than a decade, but she was laid off the day after returning from maternity leave. Since then, she has worked as a freelance writer.

One of my go-to comfort foods is potatoes drowned in cream of chicken soup with lots of butter baked in the oven. I made this all the time when I was really poor. If I could afford cheese, so much the better! I still love it to this day. My family actually likes it tho I do snazz it up now w/ bits of actual chicken and sometimes some cream in there. It's still horridly unhealthy and not very nutritious and utterly divine.

Another one from my childhood that I adore is one my Stepfather used to make, Open-faced Bean Samiches. You take a piece of bread, put a layer of pork n' beans, whole green chilies, tomato slices, swiss cheese, and criss-crossed strips of bacon on top (cook the bacon first) then pop the whole thing into the oven until it's heated and the bread is toasted. I was nervous about my family liking that one too, but they LOVE that one as well!

One of my go-to comfort foods is potatoes drowned in cream of chicken soup with lots of butter baked in the oven. I made this all the time when I was really poor. If I could afford cheese, so much the better! I still love it to this day. My family actually likes it tho I do snazz it up now w/ bits of actual chicken and sometimes some cream in there. It's still horridly unhealthy and not very nutritious and utterly divine.

Yes, it truly does! I had to figure out the Open-faced Bean Samich recipe from memory (see below) and I was so worried that I had figured it out wrong, but one bite and I was filled with childhood happiness!

Boil the spaghetti in salted water until almost done. Brown the ground beef with the onion and garlic. Drain the spaghetti, mix the spaghetti, ground beef, bacon and cans of soup in a large bowl and dump into a greased 9 by 3 pan. Sprinkle salt, pepper and paprika on top. Make sure some spaghetti sticks up out of the mess in the pan.

Bake at 350 45 to 60 minutes until the bacon is cooked through and some of the spaghetti is crisped / browned / blackened.

For a side, take a can of green beans and boil until they turn gray. The boil-it-til-it-turns-gray trick works with canned peas as well.

My mom makes something similar, except, no bacon, and you used chopped tomatoes (maybe some paste to thicken and make a "sauce"), then egg noodles instead of spaghetti, and you end up mixing the sauce and noodles with sour cream and cottage cheese.

I actually really like it, and find that if I use italian sausage and/or some random "italian" herbs, I get something of a lasagna casserole thing.